I really enjoy good coffee, and over time have accumulated tools and techniques to improve my home brew. I rarely pay for someone to make me coffee anymore, and when I do it’s for research purposes. If you’re not a coffee connoisseur, all of this may seem ridiculous to you.

Coffee, like many things, seems very simple from the outside if you’re haven’t started exploring it’s depths. Perhaps you’ve only ever had instant coffee, or it’s nothing more than tiredness-be-gone beverage for you - that’s nothing wrong with this. I’m certainly this way with many things, I think most of us are - because time and attention are finite resources. This is an account of my coffee journey so far.

Epoch 1: Instant Coffee #

I started drinking coffee when I was a teenager, for it’s stimulanting properties. For a number of years the technique was very simple: Instant Coffee + Milk + Sugar/Honey. Occasionally I would hang out at aa Starbucks et. al, experiencing the range of exotic caffeinated beverages. This first epoch of the coffee journey ended when I started to university, and gradually began to remove sugar from my coffee. I think I once calculated my annual sugar consumption due to coffee and was startled enough that I stopped sweetening my coffee. I still occasionally indulge in a Kopi-O, South Indian style filter coffee or similar (most recently I made Dalgona coffee) but my regular brew has been sugar free since.

Instant coffee + Milk isn’t a very pleasurable experience, I never got used to the bitterness of it and initially was covering it up with extra milk, which also diluted the flavour. I started to wonder if there was a better way to make coffee. At this point in time I was spending a considerable amount of money on buying coffee, and slowly started doing more and more research on how I could recreate that smoothness at home.

Epoch 2: French Press #

Eventually I acquired a French press, and was brewing a much better milky coffee (flat white?) at home. This was a significant improvement but alas I got used to the new normal and started finding ways to solve the new problem - grounds. French presses (or at least the ones I have used) have a tendency to leave some grounds at the bottom of your coffee. If you’re happy to send the last few swigs down the drain then this is no problem, but I stubbornly wanted a ground-free cup of coffee. In my quest to get barista-grade lattes, I tried different techniques, and settled on [this])(https://bluebottlecoffee.com/preparation-guides/french-press) as my favourite.

During the french-press days I also realised that drinking the coffee black wasn’t so bad anymore, and weaned off milk. I still put milk in my coffee if I’m drinking instant coffee, but I try to structure my life so as to minimise the chances of this being necessary.

Epoch 3: Aeropress #

I moved on from the French Press to the AeroPress as I got more accustomed to black coffee, and as university intensified and I needed to be more awake for longer. For a number of years the Aeropress was the gold standard, and I enjoyed it greatly. I started watching videos of the world AeroPress championships, changing up my technique and experimenting with different beans. I was still buying pre-ground (espresso grind), and I wasn’t quite sitting and enjoying sipping my coffee, but I was able to change the flavour in a direction I liked - less bitterness and acidity, more extraction. Nowadays, I’ll occasionally use the Aeropress to make an espresso when I need an energy boost. I wasn’t happy about the number of filter papers going in the bin so I switched to a steel mesh filter. Some cry heresy, but I couldn’t detect a difference in taste.

I couldn’t settle on a single technique as my favourite, so I alternate between Paulina Miczka’s Aeropress championship winning technique and Alan Adler’s original technique. The latter is much less complex than the former, and quite unconventional compared to many brewing guides, but it’s from the Aeropress inventor himself and produces tasty results.

Bulletproof Coffee #

The Aeropress epoch went lasted through a few winters. I normally have my first meal around lunchtime¹ but I realised I felt less cold and depressed² if I had some calories in the morning. This is when I discovered bulletproof coffee. The official recipe and it’s variations get a bit complicated so I settled on: Espresso + Coconut oil + Blender. You can use one of those cheap electric frothers if you want, but it won’t make a nice solution like a blender will and all the oil will float on top, which to me felt like consuming the ingredients in sequence. When I have this, I use the Aeropress with something robust like Lavazza’s espresso grind - I recommend not to use a fancy coffee or brewing technique for this as it’ll all be lost inside the coconut oil flavour.

Cold Brew #

All the above has been about hot brewing - I’m also a fan of cold brewing. Cold brew coffee can be a lot more concentrated than hot brew, but a lot less acidic which is apparently better on the stomach lining (if coffee is your breakfast). Initially I cold brewed very simply with: Grounds + Water + Jar + Time. I would use the french press or aeropress to filter the coffee after 12-18 hours.

Then I discovered the PuckPuck, which is soulmates with the Aeropress. This is my cold brew gold standard now, and has lots of settings to play with.

Epoch 4: Drip Coffee #

I become good friends with someone who was further along the coffee path than I, and started frequenting more indie coffee shops. They featured all kinds of weird and wonderful equipment, spec sheets of the beans, large containers of “Batch Brew”, and other things I had probably seen before, but never noticed. After tasting the batch brew’s at a few places, I knew this was the next goal. For the first time, I could actually taste some of the flavour notes in the coffee - it was quite an experience. Hard to believe that was the same beverage as what I’d been having all these years.

This where things started to get serious. I was gifted a V60 (by the same friend), and started getting serious about home brewing - I bought a scale. For a while I only changed my technique, using pre-ground coffee and a standard kettle. As with the Aeropress, I wasn’t happy about the paper waste but haven’t yet adopted a more sustainable solution³.

Water #

Eventually I hit a ceiling with the V60 as well - I still wasn’t getting that barista-grade drip coffee. I did some research⁴, watched videos, etc. The next step in improving the brew was the water quality. Switching to mineral water made a big difference, and once I tasted the improvement I (somewhat) got over how strange I felt⁵ buying bottled water.

Grind #

The next thing I focused on was my grind. I was still buying pre-ground coffee, and you can’t really find a “V60 grind” - it’s usually espresso or cafetiere unless you get it ground at a roastery or similar. I used a hand grinder for a while, but eventually became too lazy for the 5 mins of forearm exercise every morning when I wanted a cup of coffee so got a cheap but highly rated electric burr grinder. This was a big quality of life improvement, and allowed me to fine tune by grind much easier than the hand grinder.

Kettle #

The most recent gift from coffee-santa (the same friend as the V60) has been a goose neck stovetop kettle. With this, I finally have the beginnings of that coveted barista-grade drip coffee.

Present Day #

Now with all the above tools and techniques at my disposal, I’ve started regularly making coffee I really enjoy. My current go-to is the V60 as I rediscover it’s joys with a gooseneck kettle.

Coffee-santa also sent me a Kalita, and I have so far had a good time brewing with it! Still haven’t figured out an optimal technique, or ins-and-outs of it’s control surfaces, but it generally produces a more consistent brew than the V60 - I think this is because it is less sensitive to the dynamics of the pour.

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